Verizon has completed a field trial of NG-PON2 fiber-to-the-premises technology that could provide the infrastructure for download speeds up to 10 Gbps for residential and business customers. The huge telco’s current top download speed for its residential FiOS service is 500 Mbps. The new technology could “open the door” to speeds as high as 80 Gbps, according to Verizon. 

The field trial took place on a network link between the company’s central office in Framingham, MA and a home three miles away served by Verizon FiOS. The test required installation of a new optical line terminal (OLT) at the central office supporting four wavelengths, each capable of delivering speeds up to 10 Gbits/s downstream and 2.5 Gbits/s upstream. Verizon also said it was able to demonstrate the simultaneous use of standard GPON and NG-PON2 on a single fiber, and a successful fail-over scenario where its new ONT autonomously restored 10G service by tuning to a new wavelength after a simulated fault was introduced.

Vendor partners in the trial included Cisco Systems Inc. and PT Inovação (part of the Portugal Telecom Group) which provided the NG-PON2 equipment system.

For Verizon’s upcoming NG-PON2 RFP, there are vendors like Alcatel-Lucent, Adtran Inc. Calix Networks Inc,  Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. and of course Cisco. 

“The advantage of our FiOS network,” said Lee Hicks, vice president of network technology at Verizon, “is that it can be upgraded easily by adding electronics onto the fiber network that is already in place. Deploying this exciting new technology sets a new standard for the broadband industry and further validates our strategic choice of fiber-to-the-premises.”

ITU-T recommendations for NG PON2 specify up to 40G b/sec speed:

Recommendation ITU-T G.989.1 series describes 40 Gigabit-capable passive optical network (NG-PON2) systems to an optical access network for residential, business, mobile backhaul, and other applications.

Recommendation ITU-T G.ngpon2.1 addresses the general requirements of 40 Gigabit-capable passive optical network (NG-PON2) systems, in order to guide and motivate the physical layer and the transmission convergence layer specifications. This Recommendation includes principal deployment configurations, migration scenarios from legacy PON systems, and system requirements that are requested by network operators. This Recommendation also includes the service and operational requirements to provide a robust and flexible optical access network supporting all access applications.

The physical layer specifications for the NG-PON2 physical media dependent (PMD) layer is described in Recommendation ITU-T G.989.2 (ex G.ngpon2.2, draft). The transmission convergence (TC) layer is described in ITU-T Rec. G.987.3, with unique modifications for NG-PON2 captured in Recommendation ITU-T G.989.3 (ex G.ngpon2.3, draft). The ONU management and control interface (OMCI) specifications are described in ITU-T Rec. G.988 for NG-PON2 extensions.

http://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-G.989.1-201303-I

References:

http://www.multichannel.com/news/technology/verizon-tests-10-gig/392933

http://www.lightreading.com/gigabit/fttx/verizon-revs-up-wireline-race-with-ng-pon2/d/d-id/717555

http://www.telecompaper.com/news/verizon-tests-ng-pon2-to-seek-proposals-later-this-year–1096954

https://www.ntt-review.jp/archive/ntttechnical.php?contents=ntr201503gls.html

http://www.lightreading.com/gigabit/next-gen-pon/10g-pon-technologies-where-do-they-make-sense/a/d-id/713072